Q&A with Animade’s Milo Targett, director of ‘Dam’
London-based studio Animade, known for their clean designs and constantly evolving approach to their work, have produced another wonderful film, this time with studio creative Milo Targett taking the reins. Dam is a darkly comic short that uses a minimal colour palette and straightforward but charming designs to tell a story of comfort and familiarity stripped away in a matter of moments. As always, the studio has teamed great visuals with brilliant timing. We were able to ask Milo a few questions about the project and life at the studio;
You said that the film was inspired by the idea of comfort and how quickly turmoil can change things, can you tell me a little more about why you felt that was relevant at this time?
The film explores what happens when a familiar environment is suddenly pulled from under your feet – when the bubble bursts! I wasn’t trying to make a political point, but I think a feeling of instability is partly woven into the narrative of Dam.
The film was made entirely in After Effects and you were able to create a very fluid visual effect, can you tell me a little more about this?
All the animation is done using shape layers with path animation and rotation; I just had to be selective with how I animated things. After Effects path animation was perfect for the long, drawn-out movements that I wanted. Sometimes it’s good to have limitations.
The simplified style and minimal colour palette is very eye catching, can you elaborate on some of the references and inspirations you had for this?
I wanted to translate the way I draw into a vectored illustration style with a minimal colour palette. It’s always tempting to add another colour to help pick out a certain element but again, the limitation leads to more interesting solutions. Thematically I took inspiration from Robert Loebel’s film Wind; I loved the really simple premise of their being people who are so dependent on something so out of their control.
Animade is super hot on allowing their staff to create work within the studio to push creativity and independent ideas, in your experience how does this affect the studio as a whole?
It’s great! I think it’s really good to have a positive attitude to downtime development work. It’s a great way to try out new things that may or may not work, which means we can then take what we’ve learned and feed them into future projects with clients.
Learn more about the work of Animade at animade.tv
Visit Milo Targett’s site at milotargett.co.uk